Welcome to round 1 of the Jason Romano Commemorative NLC’s hottest blogger contest. 15 of the best-looking players on NLC (plus one fella in limbo) face off in a single-elimination tournament.Voting has closed in our second pairing with the Cardinals’ highly touted Rick Ankiel winning over the Cubs’ Sam Fuld. You’re almost out of time to find a bunch of people to vote for Brandon Backe vote in our Battle of the Brandons, if you actually want to try and change anything.

Tonight we consider the Reds’ Joey Votto, the only player who was actually nominated in this contest (thank you, BubbaFan) and the Brewers’ JJ Hardy.

Joey Votto
ht: 6-3 wt: 220 dob: 09/10/1983

Votto, from Ontario, gives us a little Canadian flavor to the contest, but we won’t hold that against him. The guy can hit: in 84 ABs with the Reds team he’s put up a .321 AVG and a .548 SLG. Plus, you gotta love those four long balls.

JJ Hardy
ht: 6-2 wt: 190 dob: 08/19/1982

Hardy has perhaps the best player profile on Brewers.com. It covers all the important stuff, like the fact that he’s single, his favorite food is steak, he likes to vacation in Montana, and his parents were both professional athletes, his father in tennis, his mother in golf. You also might be interested to see his write-up in this article “Hotties of the Milwaukee Brewers.” Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea.

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Welcome to round 1 of the Jason Romano Commemorative NLC’s hottest blogger contest. 15 of the best-looking players on NLC (plus one fella in limbo) face off in a single-elimination tournament.

Voting has closed in our first pairing, finding veteran hottie Jason LaRue victorious over underdog Manny Parra. There’s still time to vote in our second match, between Sam Fuld and Rick Ankiel.

Our third pairing sets the Astros’ Brandon Backe against the Reds’ Brandon Phillips. I suspect that this is the 1-16 seed game, but maybe Backe will surprise me.

Brandon Backe
ht: 6-0 wt: 195 dob: 4/5/1978

OK, so this battle of the Brandons might be more fair if it were Brandon Claussen representing the Reds, but Backe isn’t bad, especially by Astros standards. And his 3-1 record in 5 games last season would have trounced Claussen.

Brandon Phillips
ht: 6-0 wt: 195 dob: 6/28/1981

A new member of the 30-30 club, a spectacular fielder, and the subject of debate over his parental status, Phillips may be the single-most exciting player on the Reds right now. And that includes Mike Stanton!

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Welcome to round 1 of the Jason Romano Commemorative NLC’s hottest blogger contest. 15 of the best-looking players on NLC (plus one fella in limbo) face off in a single-elimination tournament.

If you haven’t already voted in our first pairing–the Jason LaRue/Manny Parra contest–take a gander at those hotties as well.

Our second pairing pits a couple of newbies against each other as the Cubs’ Sam Fuld (or as I like to think of him, “the honey with the light eyes”) and the Cardinals’ Rick Ankiel (or as I like to think of him, “the guy I included in the tourney specifically for Bellyscratcher’s husband to vote for) face off.

Sam Fuld
ht: 5-10 wt: 180 dob: 11/20/1981

Fuld’s only appeared in 14 games, so we have to forgive him his .000 average for the moment. He has the distinction of being the only Cubs’ profile picture that actually make me say, “oh!”

Rick Ankiel
ht: 6-1 wt: 210 dob: 7/19/1979

OK, calling Ankiel a newbie isn’t exactly accurate, but he’s new to the outfield after fighting back from forgetting how to pitch exactly when it mattered. He’s also been subjected to some steroid-related scrutiny lately. But he’s kinda cute, so he’s got that going for him.

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Welcome to round 1 of the Jason Romano Commemorative NLC’s hottest blogger contest. 15 of the best-looking players on NLC (plus one fella in limbo) face off in a single-elimination tournament.

Special thanks to the literally one of your who nominated players. Don’t see your favorite on the list? Well, I hope you’ve learned the benefits of nominating someone. The rest of the players were selected via a complex scientific process of looking at their profile photos on their teams’ MLB pages and, in some cases, me just adding them. They were then quasi-randomized and bracketed for this exciting, once-in-a-lifetime contest opportunity!

You’ll have 1 week to place your vote in each contest. New contests will be available as I get around to them. Feel free to pimp for your favorite in the comments. Results are final and cheating is OK as the contest doesn’t really mean anything.

Our first pairing pits a longtime Red Hot Mama favorite, the Cardinals’ Jason LaRue, against an unknown in the Brewers’ Manny Parra.

Jason LaRue
ht: 5-11 wt: 205 dob: 03/19/1974

LaRue boasts the square jaw, rugged features, and constant damp skin of the hometown boy all the country girls swoon over.

Manny Parra
ht: 6-3 wt: 200 dob: 10/30/1982

Parra brings a subtle sweet smile and boyish charm. And though you’ve never heard of him, that’s only because he just debuted in July. In his 26.1 innings pitched, though, he brought a 3.76 ERA and 26 Ks.

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Before the game, the photographer had a couple of the players out to take some of those posed pictures that they use on the big board when the player comes up to bat. One of those was Bubba Crosby.

Since the photographer was taking advantage of these poses, the CTS, acting as Crack Photography Staff, figured we might as well get them as well.

This one will be very intimidating on the big board when he's at the bat.

It's like he was posing just for us. Except for the fact that he's looking down a little bit.

Considering they were taking these photos yesterday, it was surprising to find out later that he'd been outrighted to Louisville. I would imagine, though, that if he stays with the organization that they know they'll be using them before too long.